Warhol, Hirst to Boost $76 Million Test of Art Market

Works by Andy Warhol and Damien Hirst will lead contemporary-art sales in London next month that
may raise at least 49 million pounds ($76 million) and test a
fragile market recovery, dealers said.

Increased volumes have boosted estimates at Christie’s
International, Sotheby’s and Phillips de Pury & Co. auctions
during London’s “Frieze Week” to about double the level of
last year. The market is struggling to regain momentum after
buyers shunned overpriced lots in the summer.

“We’ve tried to put the brakes on slightly,” Francis Outred, Christie’s European head of contemporary art, said in an
interview. “Demand was becoming more selective in June. We’ve
been advising sellers not to push too hard with their estimates
and let the market decide.”

On Oct. 14, Christie’s will be offering a Hirst
“butterfly” painting from 2006, “I am become death, shatterer
of worlds.” The 17 foot (5 meter) abstract is estimated at as
much as 3.5 million pounds, making it the most valuable work by
the artist to have appeared at auction since 2008.

Another Hirst butterfly of the same size sold for 4.7
million pounds at Phillips in October 2007. The seller of this
latest work to be offered, featuring two circular explosions of
color inspired by nuclear physicist Robert Oppenheimer’s
quotation from the Bhagavad Gita, is an American collector,
Christie’s said.

Hirst’s Zenith

Few high-value works by Hirst have appeared at auction
since Sotheby’s 111.5 million-pound “Beautiful Inside My Head
Forever” sale in September 2008 marked the zenith of the
artist’s commercial success. At that two-day event, which
coincided with the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., 24
works attracted prices of more than 1 million pounds. No pieces
by Hirst have reached that level at auction in 2010.

Christie’s estimates its 51-lot evening auction will raise
at least 15.95 million pounds, more than double the 6.8 million
pound low estimate of its 25-lot sale last year.

The auction will include three pieces exhibited at Charles Saatchi’s “USA Today” show of young American artists at the
Royal Academy in 2006. Paintings by Mark Bradford and Kelley
Walker are estimated to sell for as much as 300,000 pounds and
700,000 pounds apiece. Christie’s declined to confirm Saatchi is
the seller. The auction house yesterday named Steven Pleshette Murphy as chief executive to succeed Ed Dolman, who was promoted
to chairman.

Like Christie’s, Sotheby’s has this year chosen to offer
20th-century Italian works -- traditionally sold in the week
after Frieze -- on the same evening as contemporary art.

“People are in town for three or four days maximum during
Frieze,” Cheyenne Westphal, Sotheby’s European chairman of
contemporary art, said. “It’s better if you can present all the
material together at the same time.”

Warhol’s Diamonds

Sotheby’s Oct. 15 evening offering of 40 lots carries a low
estimate of 10 million pounds. The most valuable work is the
vibrantly colored 1980 Warhol silkscreen, “Diamond Dust
Shoes.” Never offered at auction before, this is estimated to
sell as much as 1.6 million pounds.

The sale also includes six works entered by Jerry Hall.
Lucian Freud’s 1997 oil-on-canvas “Eight Months Gone,”
depicting the model reclining nude while pregnant with her
fourth child, Gabriel, carries an estimate of 300,000 pounds to
400,000 pounds. The 1965 Frank Auerbach canvas, “Head of Helen
Gillespie IV,” is expected to fetch as much as 900,000 pounds.

Optimistic Estimates

In May, average prices at Sotheby’s and Christie’s evening
sales of contemporary works in New York were more than double
what they achieved at equivalent auctions in 2009. A month later
in the U.K. capital, the rate of increase slowed to 46 percent,
according to the London-based research company ArtTactic. Over-
optimistic estimates led to an increased number of lots falling
short of expectations, said dealers.

Phillips estimated its evening sale of 56 lots on Oct. 13
may raise at least 6.5 million pounds. The equivalent event last
year, containing 43 works, carried a low estimate of 5 million
pounds. The most valuable piece in the sale is the 1978 David Hockney six-part watercolor, “Autumn Pool,” from the “Paper
Pool” series, valued at as much as 1 million pounds.

The following day, Phillips will hold a 148-lot sale of
more affordable contemporary works. This offering carries an
estimate of 2.1 million pounds to 2.9 million pounds.

(Scott Reyburn writes about the art market for Muse, the
arts and culture section of Bloomberg News. Opinions expressed
are his own.)

To contact the writer on the story:
Scott Reyburn in London at sreyburn@hotmail.com.